Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 02] (17 page)

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Authors: The Duke Next Door

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Dinner’s early and abrupt end only gave Fortescue more of what was now his favorite time of the day. At the moment, he was secluded in his office, leaning over a luxuriously fiery head of hair, breathing in the softly warmed air that rose from pale, northern skin, keeping his mind on his task with the most iron of wills.
“That’s quite good,” he said evenly. Madness when his pulse pounded like a racing horse! Then he pointed at one error in the row of figures. “But there, do you see?”
She bent closely over the tablet. “Oh!” She corrected it quickly and leaned back with smile. “Sure and I ought to have known that one was wronger than a six-toed cat!”
Fortescue didn’t laugh. “Patricia, there’s something I’ve been meaning to say.” He rounded his desk and took his usual seat. “You’re very quick to learn, but you’ll rise even higher once you wring the last of the Irish from your speech.”
She drew back at that. “Would I, then? And what would I be usin’ for a heart if I did such a cowardly thing?”
Fortescue leaned back in his fine butler’s chair, nearly as fine as his lordship’s in the study. “Is it cowardly to want to improve oneself?”
“Improve to what? To be a liar?” She shook her head. “I’ve no argument against speakin’ proper, mind, but there’s no shame in bein’ an Irishwoman.” She swallowed, glancing away to hide the abrupt shine in her eyes. “Sometimes me own voice is the only thing that makes home seem real, here is this fine city of yours. Seems more than a week’s journey away amid all these stone walls and fine-dressed folk …”
Patricia drew a breath and forced herself to calm. Himself didn’t want her tears wasting his valuable time. There he sat, that look on his face like he’d sat on a pin in church. If he were a man from her world, she’d tease him now until he laughed large and free. And wouldn’t he make a fine Irishman, with those shoulders and those blue, blue eyes—black Irish, they’d call him here, with night-dark hair and a wicked white smile …
He moved to speak, and for a moment she fully expected a smooth deep brogue from his tongue—Mary help her, she’d kiss him full on the lips just to hear the sound of home!
Instead he spoke perfect, cold, clipped Brit—each hard word like a hailstone to her ear.
“No one will force you to do anything, of course,” he said stiffly. Heaven help the man, he knew no other way to speak, it was sure. “I only meant to offer you some valuable advice.”
Now he’d shamed her, as she ought to be with that outburst against his generosity.
She smoothed her skirts and sat as ramrod straight as he. “I’ll think about it then, sir,” she said, keeping her tone as cool and businesslike as his was. “Should I finish the readin’—I mean, the
reading?
”
He nodded, his expression even and calm—yet she
could tell she’d damaged the easier air he’d come to have during their evenings together. She suppressed a sigh. The British were a touchy lot, easy to offend and slow to forgive.
You’d best watch out, Patty-girl, and not get too high on yourself, or this one’ll see your big feet back on the street.
She would do well to remember that it was only on her ladyship’s request that she had this opportunity—and her ladyship’s standing wasn’t all that high in Brook House at the moment.
Poor milady.
CALDER PACED THE length and breadth of his enormous bedchamber and found it not large enough to contain his edgy mood.
For a brief, bizarre moment he longed for his brother’s company. Rafe would know precisely how to charm the hurt from a woman’s eyes, to win a smile over a frown …
Then again, Rafe had a habit of winning a bit more than a smile from Calder’s women. Never mind. He didn’t need Rafe’s charm for this. He had something his brother didn’t—unlimited resources. Money couldn’t buy love, but it might purchase a cessation of hostilities, at least long enough for him to figure out where everything had gone so bloody wrong.
What would make a woman like Deirdre smile?
His mind wandered over every moment he’d spent with her this last month: the suppers at Brook House with her cousins and her beastly stepmother, the way she’d proposed to him as smoothly as he’d ever been
offered a partnership in business, the way she’d looked walking down the aisle to stand hand in hand with him, her usual stylish beauty exalted further by that Lementeur wedding gown—
He took a breath, then let it out slowly. He let his mind rest wistfully on the few smiles he’d seen since the day he’d ordered no parties, no balls, and no new gowns.
Oh yes, that ought to do for a start.
THE NEXT MORNING Deirdre woke to find herself in a silken heaven. She blinked and rubbed at her eyes, then looked again.
Gowns. Gowns piled high upon every surface. Jewel tones in silk and lace, ribbon and pearl. Even the air in the room was perfumed with that particularly heady scent of expensive fabric!
She sat up slowly to find that gowns had even been draped over her sprawled limbs while she slept. She reached toward a lovely confection of pleated silk of midnight blue, just the tone to set off the gold in her hair!
The fabric whispered beneath her touch.
I’m real,
it said.
Stroke me. Ruffle me.
Wear
me.
“All right,” she whispered back. “If you insist.”
A soft chuckle sounded from somewhere in the room.
“Hello?”
An angel popped up from beneath a cloud of creamy organza—that is, if angels were small, neatly attired men with sparkling eyes and puckish features. “Good morning, my lady.”
She gasped. “Lementeur! Whatever are you doing here?” Waking to find her bedchamber full of stunning gowns was rather magical, but waking to find their designer himself come to deliver them? That was miraculous!
She smiled at London’s most sought after gown maker. She felt no unease at all seeing him in such intimate circumstances, for hadn’t he seen her in much less during all their fittings before the wedding?
Besides, Lementeur just wasn’t that sort of fellow.
He grinned back at her and spread his arms wide. “Ali Baba’s cave, yes?”
“Ali Baba’s cave a dozen times over!” Deirdre laughed and scrambled out of bed, running from the piles of gowns to the piles of hat boxes, and then on to the piles of glove boxes. “And shoes! And combs! And matching reticules!”
It was heaven, pure heaven, manna to the shallow, fashion-hungry part of Deirdre’s starved little soul. Then she halted, multicolored ribbons slithering from her fingers to ripple to the floor. “But … his lordship won’t allow it.”
She looked around, aching for the beauty surrounding her, then calmly put her empty hands behind her back. “I’m sorry, Lementeur,” she said with all the dignity she could muster through such a humiliating moment. “You’ve brought all this for nothing, I fear. I assumed you knew that his lordship canceled all my orders.”
Lementeur smiled, his eyes crinkling in delight. “Oh, I knew. I kept making them, of course, for I knew you’d bring him around in time. Sure enough, there he was, banging on my door in the middle of the night, the great Brookhaven himself, pacing back and forth in my
entrance hall, doubling the order and paying thrice the amount to have most of it delivered first thing this morning!” He winked at her. “Repentant husbands always make it a very good month for me!”
“Calder did that?” Deirdre gazed about her, the bright colors and sumptuous fabrics now worth more to her than ever. Her lower lip began to tremble and the brilliant shades began to blur before her eyes.
Lementeur offered her his handkerchief with practiced speed and led her to a free chair. “There you are, pet. Sit down. Let me pour you some tea.”
Through her upwelling of emotion, Deirdre had to snort. “This happens often, then?”
Lementeur handed her a steaming cup of tea from where the tray was nearly hidden by hat boxes, then he perched on the chair arm beside her. He had to, for there was nowhere else in the vast gown-draped chamber to sit!
He patted her gently on the shoulder while she damply sipped at her tea. “The more generous the man, the more handkerchiefs I bring. Lord Brookhaven rated a full dozen. That’s a record!”
Deirdre laughed and dabbed at her eyes. “Then I hope you put in a fresh supply for me, for he’s an unpredictable fellow.”
“Nonsense,” Lementeur said briskly. Though he sat higher than her, their eyes were nearly level. “There’s no such thing. Men are as simple as wind-up clockworks. Turn the key this way, everything works smoothly. Turn the key that way, you break the spring and it never works properly again.”
She let her cup settle to her knees and stared at him breathlessly.
“What is the key?”
He smiled mysteriously at her for a long moment, then leaned forward and tapped her affectionately on the nose. “Love, of course! Love is always the answer.”
“Oh.” Deirdre wilted, hope deflated. “I don’t know how to make him love me. I think he wanted someone sweet, like Phoebe.”
Lementeur tsked. “You can’t make a man love
you.
All you can do is love
him
.” He stood and tugged his cuffs into perfection. “You may not be amiable or uncomplicated, my lady, but what you are is strong. You’ve had to be. After all, it requires a will of steel to survive Lady Tessa!” He crinkled his eyes at her. “Give it a go. His lordship is a good man and no denser than most. He’ll catch on.”
Then he sketched a neat little bow and left her there, surrounded by piles of Calder’s generosity, holding a cup of tea in her hand and a fresh bloom of hope in her heart.
Calder waited in his own front hall like a twitchy suitor, his restlessness prompting even the staid Fortescue toward drawn-out exhalations of exasperation. The gowns had gone up with Lementeur, with his heavily laden underlings following him like baby ducks. Now Calder had nothing to do but wait for the dressmaker to leave.
Waiting on a blasted dressmaker! Yet, the little fellow knew women like no other man in London and he’d insisted that Calder remain downstairs until he’d been given permission to go up.
Just when Calder was about to cast that advice to the wind, the dressmaker came tripping lightly down the stair, one hand on the banister, a satisfied smile on his face. First, however, he turned to the butler. “Mr. Fortescue, if you would send that lovely flame-haired creature up to her ladyship now? I’m sure she’s ready to try some things on.”
Then he grinned up at Calder. “My lord, please wait precisely fifteen minutes before you present yourself.” He winked. “I’m sure it will be worth the wait.”
He took his hat from Fortescue and placed it upon his head, pausing to add the slightest tilt with one
practiced tap of his forefinger. Then he bowed. “Good day, my lord.” He left with a jaunty step.
Calder ignored him, his eyes on the tall clock in the hall. Fourteen minutes and counting. He didn’t know why he was following Lementeur’s orders without question. Perhaps it was because his own methods had worked so well for him before?
At last the minute hand flicked to the fourteenth minute. Calculate one minute to climb the stairs—although he thought he might have taken much less in his hurry—and to march down the hall to the marchioness’s chambers—and to tap upon the door—
Patricia opened it, curtsying quickly when she saw him. “Yes, milord?”
Deirdre’s voice came from behind her. “Let him in, Patricia.”
The maid swung the door wide upon a vision in midnight blue. Calder’s throat went dry at the lovely woman standing before him. How was it that he sometimes forgot how stunning she was?
The gown was Calder’s particular favorite—had she somehow known that? It was pleated and wrapped around the bodice, arrowing in upon the best parts of her sumptuous anatomy and accentuating them without that obvious sort of display that he scorned. The rest of the shimmering silk fell straight to the floor with no distracting ruffles or bows. There was only rich blue silk encasing lovely, luscious woman.
Then the smile she gave him dazzled him further. Freely offered, delighted and real—he felt awash in light from a summer sun. He opened his mouth to speak, but it seemed he’d forgotten how.
She spun about in delight. “Isn’t it beautiful? I love them all but I think this is my favorite!”
So beautiful.
He cleared his throat, mastering speech at last. “I’m glad you like them.”
She stroked loving fingers over more silken offerings as she walked toward him. “I must thank you. You’ve been most generous … Calder.” Her eyes were on the floor now, her tone shy.
It was the first time she’d called him by his given name. He’d had no idea how he’d hungered for that until this moment. Something eternally tight seemed to unwind within him.
“Well.” He swallowed. “You’ve been good to Meggie. She’s very fond of you. I—thank you.”
Deirdre lifted her gaze to meet her husband’s. It was rather bare and naked, that “thank you.” It was not the stuffy mouthing of “appropriate things to say” she’d come to expect from him. It was the simple wording of a man who felt more deeply than he could express.
All you can do is love him.
It was certainly worth a try. She reached for his hand and slipped hers inside. “For someone to do what you did for me today … no one has ever done anything like that for me before.”
She saw Patricia slide out of the room, but not before the maid cast her a roguish smile of encouragement from behind Calder’s back.
Deirdre took a breath and went on. “It is especially kind after the way I’ve treated you.”
He blinked. “The way you’ve treated me?” His voice was deep and low, as soft as velvet, as dark as coffee. His hand warmed around hers, his fingertips smoothing
a near caress. “I thought I was the one who needed to apologize.”
She tilted her head, unable to resist teasing her somber lord. “You certainly have a great deal to apologize for.”
He nodded. “I know. The way I touched you at the factory—”
She flapped her other hand. “Not that. I loved every moment of that. Hope to do it again sometime soon.”
He gaped. “What? But—I—”
“I do think it was rather bad of you to stop, however. Rather like breaking a promise, don’t you think?”
“We were exposed, in front of the entire factory. You didn’t want me to stop?”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “I didn’t want you to stop,” she said slowly, as if to an idiot.
That startled a short bark of laughter from him. “I’m fairly certain you’re half mad.”
She grinned, encouraged. “What I am is disappointed. It isn’t gentlemanly to let a lady down that way.”
Something like a smile crooked the corners of his lips. She rejoiced to see it.
“I don’t think you are anything at all like I thought you were.”
She gave an indifferent shrug, but her gaze slid away. “Sorry to disappoint you.” She tried to keep the hurt low and the self-mockery high. “However, the complaints office is next door, to the right.”
He leaned one shoulder on the bedpost, never letting loose her hand. He looked unbearably handsome like that, gazing down at her with those dark eyes, with just the tiniest smile at the corner of his lips.
I will not melt. I will not melt.
“How did someone so beautiful become so completely peculiar?”
She stiffened. So he thought she was beautiful. That was pleasant, but since most men thought she was beautiful, it mattered less than the fact that he found her peculiar. “I hardly think insulting me is the right tack to take at the moment.”
“Oh, really?” His voice deepened. Her belly quivered in answer. “What is the right tack to take, do you think? Should I get on my knees and beg forgiveness for being rough with you?”
“No.”
“Should I flatter you and tell you that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen?”
She shuddered. “God, no.”
He tilted his head, regarding her with something new in his eyes. “For all your primping, you aren’t a bit vain, are you?”
She grimaced. “The primping is for your benefit, not mine,” she retorted in a grumpy tone. “I long to run about in uncombed hair and ragged nails and greens in my teeth.”
He snorted in disbelief. “Surely not.”
She fought down a grin. “Oh, very well. I do like clean teeth.”
He sat on the high bed, bringing his gaze nearly even with hers. “As do I.”
He was so large before her. Something ancient and female responded to his size alone.
Strong male, will protect.
Except she didn’t want protecting, not really. What she wanted was far more complicated and necessary.
She loved him, everything about him—dark and
brooding, hesitantly kind, lonely and broken and hers, if she hadn’t already ruined everything.
I want you to love me—all of me—not just the pretty exterior.
He raised his hand to brush back a loose strand of hair from her temple. “I like that you are beautiful,” he said softly. “I like that your eyes are just that shade of blue, and that your figure is just this shape.” He wrapped his hands about her waist, his fingers spread as if to measure it. “Although I do think you could do with a bit more of it—”
Breathless from his touch, she gazed at him in surprise. “You said you didn’t want me to get fat!”
He raised a brow. “And then what did you do?”
She opened her mouth to answer, then halted.
I ate everything in sight, even the ham!
Her toes curled in memory. She had to swallow before she could speak again. “So, let me see if I understand you correctly—you think I’m too thin?”
He shrugged. “I think you work too hard at being thin. I would rather see you eat and enjoy yourself. I like you as you are. I would like you just as much if you ate ham every day of your life.”
She tilted her head and let her smile grow until he blinked, as though he were just a bit blinded. “That, my lord, is a bargain.”
He let out a long breath and dropped his forehead to rest on her bosom. “I am not a glib or persuasive man. I don’t know how to make pleasant conversation or pretty apologies, no matter how much I wish to.”
She tentatively raised her hand to rest it in his thick dark hair. He made a low noise at her touch, like a wounded beast finding respite at last. She let her hand
slide, feeling the silky crispness of his hair over her fingertips, until her palm rested on the back of his neck. She felt his muscles relax beneath her touch and saw the pride and arrogance seep from his broad shoulders. His hands tightened about her waist, not in desire or at least, not entirely, but as if he silently clung, unable to tell her of his need.
He was so good at being the great Lord Brookhaven that it was easy to forget that he was only a man, subject to the same doubts and isolation as anyone else in this world.
“You can’t make a man love you. All you can do is love him.”
In that moment she realized that she’d not given once to this man. She’d blamed him, called him arrogant and unfeeling, yet he had been the first to give. She’d demanded his attention, fought for his respect and ached for his love—and not once had she offered hers.
She’d lived her life guarding herself and her pride and her very safety—perhaps too well. That was her old life. It was time to let down that guard.
Good-bye, Tessa.
Hello, Calder.

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